


That Which is Most Precious

by morganoconner



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bonding, Grace Sharing, M/M, Mpreg, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's only thought is that he must protect his grace. He doesn't have time to consider what his actions may cost later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which is Most Precious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kijikun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijikun/gifts).



> For [](http://kijikun.livejournal.com/profile)[**kijikun**](http://kijikun.livejournal.com/), for the [](http://deancas-xmas.livejournal.com/profile)[**deancas_xmas**](http://deancas-xmas.livejournal.com/) exchange.

Castiel doesn't immediately realize what he's sensing at first. With the souls of Purgatory all clamoring inside him, bending his vessel to their will and burying him as deeply as they can, it's all he can do to stretch his grace out, frantically searching for something, anything…

He doesn't expect to find the link. That shard of grace that is somehow unconnected to what's happening to him now, and it takes him a long moment

– _time he doesn't have, time they_ never _have_ –

to comprehend what it is. And even when understanding dawns, even when he recognizes the piece of himself shining so brightly from within Dean Winchester, he has no idea when or why or how such a thing can be.

But then there's no time to second-guess, because the souls are shoving him, piling over and on top and around him, and he has only one chance to save himself.

He takes a metaphorical breath, focuses as hard as he possibly can on that single effervescent shard, and he _releases_.

~

It's not until the thing wearing Castiel

– _not cas it's not cas it can't be cas_ –

has left, without even a hint of the normal comforting sound of wingbeats, that Dean allows himself to stop and think.

 _God_ , the thing had declared itself, and it fits nicely with the image Dean has always associated with that word.

Pompous, arrogant, evil douchebag.

He doesn't know what happened to Castiel, doesn't even want to consider that he might be dead, but he looked into the eyes of the thing wearing Castiel's face that had forced them to bow to it, and there hadn't been a flicker, not even the smallest trace of his friend there.

Dean thinks about the momentary warmth he felt when he was shielding his eyes from the intensity of whatever had taken over Castiel's vessel. It had been a show of power, the thing revealing itself as the god it claimed to be, but there was a split-second when it had also felt like _Cas_ ; a caress against his very soul, a promise from one friend to another, a touch of grace that felt familiar in ways he didn't really understand. There and gone again like ashes in the wind, because when the power had dissipated around him, there was no warmth, and a stranger had been standing before him.

But now, with the immediate threat gone and his hands clenched into fists where he's still kneeling on the floor with his head bowed, he thinks maybe he can still feel something of it after all. If he closes his eyes and reaches, searching through all the swirling darkness…

 _There._

At the core of his being, flickering in and out like a candle flame. A light he knows intrinsically belongs to Cas. He brushes it, and it feels like when Castiel touches his forehead to give him peaceful sleep, or when he heals Dean with a thought. It feels like the brush of shadowed wings, or like the taint of Hell being torn away after forty years.

It feels like something Dean shouldn't be able to recognize.

It feels like grace.

It also feels like hope.

~

Without his grace there to feed the souls' power, they grow angry and lash out. The part of Castiel that is left, his conscious being, is beaten and battered and all but killed time after time, and it never ends, because they don't allow it to end. They drive his body ever forward, using what power they possess to challenge any and all who would oppose them.

Most of the time, Castiel is in darkness, unable to recognize anything but the pain he feels. He bides his time, praying to his Father for forgiveness, waiting for the inevitable time when their finite strength will fail, and the Winchesters will have the chance to destroy them.

Destroy him, too, but that can only be a blessing now. Without his grace, he is no longer an angel. What's left will surely be sent to the abyss, and he'll endure the punishment he deserves for the mistakes that led to this madness.

And in the meantime, his grace is safe. Protected. He doesn't know what will happen to it, carried inside a human in a way no grace has ever been carried, but it is safe. It won't – can't – hurt Dean, and that's what matters most.

Castiel waits, and he prays, and he waits some more.

The end, when it finally comes, does not come in any way he expects.

~

It's a bitch of a time, keeping tabs on what _God_ is up to while simultaneously trying to find ways to diffuse him the way you would a bomb. Meanwhile, Dean also has to take care of his little brother, who's not doing so great after the wall came tumbling down, and deal with the stomach bug he contracted that won't go away.

He's tired, he's achy, he's angry, and he's depressed. Dean thinks once this is all over, he's taking an endless vacation in Hawaii, the hunting world be damned.

It's Sam who notices first, in between bouts of PTSD-induced nightmares and the occasional hallucination of Lucifer and/or Michael. It's Sam who asks Dean why his eyes are glowing, when Dean takes out a demon who was trying to finish what all of his bosses started.

Dean blinks at Sam a few times, then runs to the bathroom and stares into the mirror, and sure enough, his irises are ringed by a familiar iridescent light. Grace-light, he thinks to himself with no small amount of hysteria, and that's maybe when the problems really start.

Because after he notices that, he's suddenly laser-focused on every tiny thing he feels, and then it becomes impossible not to sense how his body is changing in ways he doesn't – or doesn't want to – understand.

Suddenly, the stomach bug isn't just a stomach bug, and the aching muscles aren't just strains from hunting, and the fatigue isn't just weariness from trying to save the world again, and the dreams of light and warmth and flight aren't just an escape from a dismal reality.

He doesn't know what they are, but he doesn't think it can be good.

Still, in his desperation, Dean notices that the power of the thing possessing Castiel's vessel seems to be flagging as time goes on, and it's with that in mind that he comes up with a way to end this once and for all.

And he's going to make sure Castiel stays alive, the bastard, because Dean has questions he wants some damn answers to.

~

As their strength dwindles, the souls die out one by one, the body they possess too small and fragile to hold them all. The weakest of them are crushed first, the strongest sensing what's happening and killing them off while there's still a choice.

When all but the strongest are left, even they have little power left to do much more than survive. The torture Castiel has endured stops, and suddenly he has the ability to _see_ again, no longer drowning beneath the overpowering wave. He looks out into the world, and the first thing he sees

– _always the first and the last and the most important_ –

is Dean, standing before him with determination and righteous fury and loyalty written into every line on his face. In one hand he holds a scroll that looks very ancient, and in the other he holds Death's ring, and Castiel could weep, because he knows that whatever Dean has in mind, he will not fail in his purpose. There is something different about him, something that shimmers and calls to Castiel, and he wishes he could call out to his grace, but he can't.

The souls are speaking to Dean, using Castiel's voice to threaten and entice and beg, but they are finished, their power all but gone, and Dean speaks words so ancient even Castiel can barely remember what they mean, and he feels like his body explodes. They pour out of him in a flood, screaming in agony as they're forced from their unwilling host. Before they can disperse and try to find new vessels, Dean yells a word, slams the ring into the ground, and the portal opens.

They are sucked away in a vortex of swirling darkness, and then they are no more.

Castiel, alone now in this body that feels so very weak, collapses. Cool darkness washes over him.

~

Sam goes out every morning and evening to get food, and Dean is so grateful Sam's put himself back together enough to make such a thing possible that he could cry. Dean doesn't know what Castiel did or why his eyes still shine with grace-light or what's going on with his body, and yeah, it freaks him the hell out every time he thinks about it. But in the three weeks since Sam first noticed it, it's given the kid something to focus on that isn't the cage or Lucifer or the year he was soulless, and it's helping him heal.

So no matter how freaked out Dean is, he's also grateful. Now if Castiel would just wake up, life would be downright peachy.

But it's been two days, and the angel

– _not an angel not anymore never again_ –

hasn't shown any sign of waking. If it weren't for the steady heartbeat and the regular breathing, Dean would think he was dead.

Hell, for all he knows, Castiel is dead, and this is just an empty vessel held together with the duct-tape remnants of a shredded grace.

Dean tries not to think that way, but over the last few years, he's become a natural pessimist, and when was the last time something went right, anyway?

On the third morning, while Sam is out on his coffee-and-bagel run and Dean is sitting by Castiel's bedside keeping silent vigil, he gives in. He takes Castiel's hand between his own, bows his head, and prays.

~

Castiel doesn't drag himself out of the darkness so much as he is dragged, something holding onto him and tugging with a force he can't fight against and a feeling that is comfortingly familiar.

It's grace. His own grace, and that means it's Dean trying to bring him back.

Armed with that knowledge, he allows himself to slip through the formless, colorless void around him and back into his body, gasping at the sudden flare of pain everywhere, then taking several deep breaths just because he can. Finding himself in control again, no matter how painful, is such a blessing he doesn't think he can put words to it.

It takes him a long time to feel the bone-crushing grip around his hand, or to hear Dean's frantic muttering close to his ear, or to overcome the gummy feeling between his eyelids enough to open them.

"Dean," he whispers, and the green-eyed gaze that focuses on him instantly, so full of worry and heartache and forgiveness, makes everything else worth it. "You did it," he says, choking around the dryness in his throat. "I never doubted you."

"You stupid goddamned idiot," Dean hisses, and in Castiel's mind, perhaps due to the intense exhaustion he feels, it sounds oddly like _I love you_.

It's not until later, after he's been given water to drink and forced down half of Dean's bagel and his limbs have stopped trembling every time he lifts his hand, that Castiel looks at Dean, really looks at him, and understands what happened.

"Oh…" he breathes, tugging on Dean's hand to bring him closer, close enough that he can peer directly into his eyes.

His grace, his beloved grace, shines through, shimmering and filled with all the glory of Heaven that Castiel had all but forgotten. But it's more than that, because what he's seeing is only a sliver, the original piece, the one that made the transfer possible at all.

The rest…

His gaze wanders down, coming to rest at Dean's stomach, where he can just see the very beginnings of a swell beginning to form.

 _Grace_ , he thinks, in awe and in fear. _Pure creation._

His eyes find Dean's again, and he swallows hard at what he's about to say.

~

Dean wonders why he doesn't feel surprised, at first, when Castiel tells him what he did, and what it caused. He's suspected for some time that somehow the angel transferred his grace, and he figured that if that was the case, Castiel must have done it to keep it safe.

He'd assumed, apparently wrongly, that it was temporary. That Castiel meant to take it back upon his return. But the circumstances of the transfer

– _bound i'm bound to him bound forever when did that happen_ why _did that happen_ –

make that an impossibility. Castiel is human now, mostly. Only the smallest sliver of grace remains within him, tied to the soul he shouldn't possess, just enough that he can feel the bond between them and the life – oh, God – growing within Dean.

Because grace is pure creation, just like Anna told them, so long ago now. And in Dean, in a vessel not meant to hold it, it created for itself a vessel that could.

And Dean should be shocked. Probably horrified. Definitely doubtful. But mostly, he's just…not. It's not like he'd consciously suspected what was going on inside him, but it makes sense, too much sense, and hell, he vaguely remembers Sam bringing up the possibility in between their rabid bouts of research.

He'd laughed it off, of course he had, because Sam had meant it as a joke, but maybe some part of him…

It doesn't matter now. It happened, it's real, and Dean's going to have a kid sometime in the next six or seven months.

He's going to have a child. He and Cas…

"I think I need to sit down," he says, suddenly dizzy.

Castiel hasn't let go of his hand since he started to speak, and now he gazes at Dean worriedly. "You are sitting," he tells him. "Dean…"

"I'm okay," Dean says, maybe even believes it. Mostly. "I'm good. I just need a second."

Or two. Maybe a few decades.

He and Castiel haven't even gotten around to fixing the last two years between them. Apparently, though, that's something he should probably get on pretty soon, because like hell is he going through this alone.

But Castiel is fixing that too-bright, too-blue gaze on him, the one that's filled with hope and desperation and yearning, and even Sam forgave the angel, days ago when they first yanked the souls out and Castiel dropped like a puppet with his strings cut, and overall, Dean is pretty sure that in the face of everything else, they're going to be okay.

But oh, God, he really needs to sit down.

Again.

~

Across the vastness of Time and Space, where reality has no meaning and all answers to all questions are known in an instant, He watches them.

There is much He knows He must atone for, transgressions He knows His children will never forgive Him. If He'd acted sooner, if He'd stayed longer, if He'd spoken just a little more…

But He will let the Past remain the Past, and remain in the Present where all things are still possible.

In spite of His mistakes, these two have flourished. It was never going to be an easy road for them, and they've lost their way more than once. But they've made up for it, time and time again, and they have learned from their mistakes in ways even He does not yet think He has or can.

And when they were both in dire need, when their faith was at its lowest point, they still prayed.

He hopes that His answer is enough.

He gazes on them, two of His most precious, and He blesses their union with the first words He has spoken as God in many, many years.


End file.
